Like One of the Family (2 page)

As if sensing this, her mother filled a hot water bottle and slipped it comfortingly against her feet.

‘There!' she said. ‘You could do with a bit of spoiling.' At the unaccustomed kindness Claire's tears overflowed.

Next day Jane McArdle paid them a visit. She was a big boned woman, with auburn hair and an infectious giggle, which, oddly at variance with her bulk, conjuring up a much younger woman.

‘How's the patient?' she asked, coming into the front room where Claire was sitting with a rug tucked loosely about her, a book open on her lap. Claire felt suddenly shy.

‘You needn't keep her wrapped up, you know.' Dr McArdle twitched away the rug. ‘Not in this weather, Annette. The poor child is the colour of lobster.'

Annette bristled, ‘There's been a cold snap these past few days,' she pointed out.

They stared at each other.

‘Why is it,' Annette asked pleasantly, ‘that doctors seem to think they're qualified to give advice in all areas, even those that don't concern them?'

Jane laughed. ‘Touché! Part and parcel of the trade. We're a bossy lot, I'm afraid.'

Annette looked mollified. ‘And mothers are inclined to be over-protective,' she conceded.

‘Don't I know it. You should see the bottles of vitamin C and cod-liver oil I dose my gang with.'

At this Annette laughed, ‘How domesticated we sound, Jane. Imagine us having this dull kind of conversation way back when we went to college hops together.'

‘Booze, men and sex were about the height of it,' Jane agreed.

‘And in that order.'

Claire sat forgotten between them as they chatted about people and places they had once known

Her convalescence lasted two weeks. By that time the summer term was more than half over and there seemed little point in going back to school. Her father, however, pointed out she had missed enough already and would drop even further behind so she returned for the last two weeks. There was a new girl in her class at St. Catherine's. Although Claire had covertly observed her on a few occasions, this was her first meeting Sheena McArdle, a slim leggy girl with bold, merry eyes under straight black brows and, with her birthday just before Claire's in June, Claire's senior by nine days.

They hit it off at once. Sheena moved her desk beside Claire's and helped her copy out notes she had missed. They lent each other rulers and colouring markers, shared their fruit and sandwiches.

They were like twins, speaking at the same time, finishing each other's sentences. Claire forgot her appendix scar and ran all over the playground, whooping and shouting. Her pigtails slipped their ribbon and blonde hair haloed her perspiring forehead.

The nuns were amazed at the change in her. She had always been so shy and restrained. She was a different child in Sheena's company, excited and garrulous. Together they got up to all kinds of mischief. On painting days they tipped the contents of murky jam jars through a broken floorboard, drenching the unsuspecting heads of the class beneath. Once during morning break, they barricaded themselves into the kitchens and sprayed cartons of milk through the serving hatch at the children in the refectory. Sister Dunphy threw up her hands and exclaimed at their antics. Only it was so near the end of term they would have been punished. As it was, she called them into her office and told them such giddy behaviour was unseemly in little girls in their first year in the senior school. She made them promise to reform. For Claire none of it was quite real. Sheena, herself, Sister Dunphy gesticulating. It was as if she had taken a step into another sphere. She had never back-answered in her life and now she was making up in a fortnight for years of good behaviour. She bit her lip, struggling to keep from giggling outright. Sister Dunphy glanced at their bursting expressions and with a sigh brought the lecture to an end. Arm in arm, Claire and Sheena pranced unrepentantly down the corridor.

The summer holidays normally meant for Claire unlimited free time to read, sprawled on her bed with a quarter pound of scented pin cushions beside her, dipping two fingers into the bag as she turned a page. On daily trips to the local library, she'd made a friend of the librarian, who was young and sympathetic and more than ready to turn a blind eye to the number of books Claire borrowed. She had practically exhausted the children's library; although she wasn't actually old enough at thirteen to join the adult section. You had to be fifteen to get an adult ticket. Sometimes she had to go further afield to branches in outlying areas when the shelves of the ‘local' turned up nothing new.

This was how Claire normally spent her summers. With the advent of the McArdles all this was changed. Now she spent her days playing with Sheena and the other McArdle children, enjoying the novelty of their big house and garden.

Unlike her own terraced house, the McArdle's house stood on its own ground, with a solid stone garage set some distance apart. This was the garage that Christopher had played in when Claire was in hospital, but since then he had fallen out with Hugh and now his allegiance was with another family, further down the road. Claire was just as glad. The McArdles were hers!

Claire had yet to meet Sheena's father, who was away all that month at a medical conference in Leipzig, but Sheena's mother made a great fuss of her, getting her to come in out of the sun when she was tired and spending time with her in the cool kitchen, where she snatched frequent coffee breaks between patients. Jane flattered Claire, gave her little jobs to do and rewarded her by treating her like a grown-up.

The garage was the centre of the children's play. In it they performed all kinds of dramas, ad libbing as they went along. A big part of their garage repertory consisted of hospital scenarios, in which Terry, Sheena's twin, insisted on playing his father most of the time, an old stethoscope dangling about his neck; and Sheena their father's receptionist, or the bossy matron at his hospital, while protesting that she didn't get to be the doctor more often. Claire and Hugh uncomplainingly acted the young married couple about to have their first baby, who was of course Ruthie.

‘Why can't Claire or I be matron sometimes?' Ruthie wailed, taking her cue from her sister. But Claire was quite happy to form part of a trio with the younger children.

She was a little in awe of Terry, who succeeded in bossing everyone except Sheena, who was equally strong-minded. With his cleverness and agile tongue he could make Claire feel foolish, but she couldn't hate him, only dumbly suffer it. He was too like Sheena.

The twins, though not identical, were very similar physically, with dark mops of hair curling untidily on their necks, and expressive dark eyes in smooth, round faces. Each exhibited an effortless, unstudied charm and consideration which at once confused and disarmed their adversaries. Together they were formidable. All of them, from Ruthie upwards, had inherited the McArdle charm. When they fought for her favours, Claire felt both privileged and embarrassed.

One thing wasn't the same anymore. Claire was no longer Sheena's twin. Out of school, Terry was restored to his rightful place. Claire felt her separateness keenly and, although they included her in all their games, felt supernumerary most of the time. It helped that Jane singled her out as she did.

‘Would you help me carry in the washing? It's lovely and dry and it may rain later.'

Claire was down the garden with Jane, behind the apple trees. A line stretched across the patch of grass Terry had begun mowing earlier in the day. He had left the edges untrimmed, the mower abandoned across the path.

‘I love my eldest son dearly but I have to admit he's a minimalist,' Jane said, stepping over it. Claire took the basket from her and carried it towards the house. ‘Now Hugh is a perfectionist like his father,' Jane chatted on. ‘As for Ruthie, that little madam. she's another Meryl Streep.'

Claire said nothing. She was becoming used to Jane's way of talking about her husband and children as though writing their biographies.

As they passed the garage they could hear Terry and Sheena playing there. There was a steady drumming sound, punctuated by Sheena's high-pitched laugh.

‘Come into the kitchen and we'll make ourselves coffee,' Jane said, tiptoeing exaggeratedly past the opening. Claire smiled and followed her into the house.

‘No need to disturb them.' With a conspiratorial wink, Jane closed the kitchen door and locked it. ‘This way is more fun.'

Claire seldom drank coffee but she liked the way Jane made it, sweet and milky. She sipped it slowly and munched shyly on a Kerry Cream.

‘Have another,' Jane urged. ‘Go on! Don't be polite.'

Pleased, Claire obeyed, feeling flattered and a little overwhelmed. She glanced discreetly about her and wished that their kitchen at home was even half as roomy as this one so that they could have their meals in it like the McArdles did. The Shannon's kitchen was little more than a scullery so they ate in the dining-room, sitting about the round mahogany table which took up most of the space. It was very cramped, especially when they had company, with Claire and her mother squeezing awkwardly past, carrying plates and apologising all the time. Claire thought everyone else lived like this until she saw how spacious the McArdle's house was.

Jane sat on a chair opposite Claire and cupped her hands around a china mug, sprigged with flowers. She eased her feet out of sling-back sandals and leaned her elbows on the table. ‘Another five minutes,' she told Claire, ‘then it's back to the grind.' She pulled a comical face.

Jane's regular receptionist was on holidays and her seventeen year old daughter was standing in for her. After a minute, the girl stuck her head around the kitchen door to say that the next patient was in the waiting-room.

‘Okay, Babs. I'll be right there.' Jane yawned and sipped her coffee, looking as if nothing would ever move her.

There was a clattering sound outside the window and a face bobbed into view. It was Terry standing on an upturned bin. He sank out of sight until only his eyes were visible above the sill. ‘We want to come in, Mum,' he shouted. ‘Open the door.' He began lashing the bin under him with a stick.

‘Stop that racket,' Jane called, unperturbed. ‘Claire and I are having a chat. Off you go now. You'll get your turn later.'

Having a chat. How grown-up it sounded. Claire was suffused with pleasure, which quickly turned to guilt when Terry fisted the window and roared a rude word. Jane just laughed. ‘Brat!' she said lazily, declining to go after him

Released in the summer months from the discipline of school time-tables and evening surgery, Jane McArdle had become very relaxed. She let her children run wild, neglected to cut their hair and only remembered their toenails when jagged tears appeared in their canvas runners. Her own hair, which could have done with professional styling, she wore girlishly tied back from her face with one of Sheena's hair ribbons. During the rest of the year she had no time to go to hairdressers, she maintained, and in summer no inclination. To save herself the chore of cooking she sent Sheena out to the local delicatessen every morning to see what she could find, and their lunches consisted of ham and salami salads one day, pizzas or barbecued chicken the next, and half a dozen buttered baguettes to fill them up. She refused to exert herself more than necessary in the summer months and meals were as labour-saving as she could make them. At the same time, she encouraged Claire to eat with them, saying that it wasn't worth her while to run home and anyway she was a civilising influence on her own children.

‘Look how Claire never grabs but waits for bread to be passed to her,' Jane praised, horrified at the speed with which her own brood cleared the table.

‘She'll be waiting,' grinned Terry, swiping the last piece. He gave it a quick lick before his mother made him return it to the plate.

‘Someone else might like it.'

‘They won't now,' he said simply. ‘I've put my saliva on it.'

Jane sighed. Sometimes she wondered why she was sending her children to good schools. They didn't have the first notion of table manners. Maybe they should all eat together more often. She met Claire's eye.

‘See what I mean?'

Claire grinned sympathetically. Even if she got a bigger share at home, she considered the McArdle mealtimes were much more fun,.

Sometimes Jane asked after Annette in an absent kind of way. Claire didn't say that her mother, after her initial pleasure in their reunion, was resentful of the fact that despite repeated invitations, Jane had so far failed to drop over for coffee and a natter. Just as she didn't tell Annette that she was no longer passing her invitations on.

Jane was inclined to fuss over Claire. How pale she was! Was she getting enough rest, eating the right food? She was a great believer in children drinking lots of milk and, when Claire admitted that she never drank a drop at home, slyly made her cups of milky coffee to get it into her that way. Pharmaceutical Companies sent Jane packs of vitamin samples through the post and she often encouraged Claire to take some home with her. No one, not even her mother, had ever shown such interest in Claire's welfare. She felt warmed yet guilty to be the object of so much concern.

‘Don't be!' Jane hugged her. ‘I can't help worrying about you, you little silly.' Her manner was at once teasing and comradely.

One day, when they were on their own in the kitchen, she told Claire to pull up her dress and, when Claire shyly revealed her tummy, gave her scar a quick, professional glance.

‘It's healing nicely,' Jane pronounced. ‘Luckily, you'll be able to wear a bikini.'

Claire hadn't thought that far ahead. The incision had been fairly neat and, over the weeks, it had lost its livid colour.

‘By the time you're my age,' Jane promised her, ‘it will be just a tiny mother-of-pearl seam.' She made it sound quite attractive. In this, and in other small ways, she was extremely solicitous of Claire in the weeks after her operation.